Managing the image of America that foreign observers held became increasingly fraught over the course of the twentieth century as American overseas interests and activities multiplied. To advance those interests abroad, Congress authorized, and successive administrations built, intensified propaganda agencies to spread the new American gospel. The State Department, the Marshall Plan, the CIA, and soon enough a new independent agency, the U.S. Information Agency (USIA), blanketed foreign audiences with performances, exhibits, lectures, film, radio, pamphlets, and much more. Scholars call this effort "public diplomacy," though a fair amount of it was covertly funded and produced. In this excerpt from my forthcoming book, I place this "public diplomacy" in the context of the American mass culture that necessitated it, and against which it often battled.

Socialism has been much in the American news of late. The historical and political abuse heaped on the word has been in no way reduced by its prevalence. One day I aim to write a primer on the history of socialism for confused American readers. For now, after the break, an excerpt from my forthcoming book about the postwar evolution of Dutch socialism which may offer some useful perspective.